Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1887-09-24
STOCK-FARMING.

side, stock grazing on the other. The
farmer is often disconnected when large
crops are bringing small prices, and occa-
sionally he fails to produce an abundance
when prices are high. The grazier or
ranchman also suffers when drouth or
hard winters cause severe losses. He was
once the creature of circumstances with
chances in his favor; now by reason of
material changes in the conditions sur
rounding him the chances are reversed.
The farmer on the one side finds It to his
advantage to gather around him a little
bunch of cattle, and the grazier is tilling
the soil to raise some feed to insure the
lives of his stock. The result is system
of mixed husbandry which has proved
successful In more instances than any
other combination on the face of the
earth. When the farmer whose whole
stock consists of work horses and an odd
COW or two is suffering from the effects of
partial crop failure, and when the gra-
zier fears that winters cold blast has
driven his starving stock into fence cor
ner or when heel-hies drive the COWS into
bog holes, then the stock-farmer has few
good steers fattening and all his stock is
grazing on wheat field or ankle deep in
rye.
It is nothing new to the generality of
farmers that stock-farming is best, because
the average stockman is farmer, and the
average farmer does raise stock; for all
this, however, there is a tendency to rush
into extremes. In Texas there was time
when a ranch-man "apologized'' for farm
ing, and againmany farmers were quick
to remark that they were ''plain farmers"
and not sotck raisers. Some of these
plain farmers are now excellent stock-feed-
ers, and they are piling up the cotton seed
hay and grainfor winter stock fattening
and during some three or four months
will carry upon their farms string of
beeves and mut-tons that took many
thousand acres to grow.
Men of moderate means cannot look for
bonanzas in agriculture. There is a limit
to the amount of ground they can buy.
The state of Texas permits settler to
purchase one section, $40 acres, and gen.
orally speaking less than one hundred
dollars puts him in possession of it. It is
at once large and a small piece of
ground. In the eyes of the stockman it is
too trihing to think about. In the eyes of
the plain farmer it is extensive, and if
productive is capable of division into four
farms, and the whole, if put in corn and
yielding forty bushels to the acre, would
make a crop of twenty-five thousand six
hundred bushels It is not every section
in the best farming States that is now pro-
ducing forty bushels Of corn to the acre,
and the simple reference to the different
sides of view is called for by the oft-re-
peated inquiry as to the most prosperous
branch of agriculture in Texas.
Take section of land. If ten per cent
say sixty acres-is cultivated, five hun
dred and eighty acres remain in good
grass. If fenced so as to prevent it being
grazed down until it obtains good stand,
it will furnish pasturage for very nice
little bunch of cattle. Fifty COWS or
seventy-five to eighty one or two-year-old
steers could be wintered, besides the
horse stock for working the farm. If
this land is lightly stocked at first it will
gradually regain the character it once had
of being the best grazing ground in
Texas. Such an amount of pasturage
would be valuable assistant to the farm.
Let a man leave the entire section in
grass, and as it was overstocked before, so
it will be again. The same can be said of
ten sections. Where grass is the only de-
pendence it either grows rank or is over
pastured and in time of need it is not
there. The farm will produce a revenue
and at the same time furnish an amount
of feed which could not be sold. To the
farmer having no stock this is almost
waste, and to the grazier it will fill in the
very time when grass is at its worst.
Begin Investigations and ask questions
of the two classes; first examine the graz
ing man who has no farm. He will tell
you that common stock will not pay the
interest and taxes On the land they run
on, the uncertainty of life in winter, the
uncertainty of fattening the beeves in
summer. He will say that he is prepar-
ing to change his methods or sell out.
The simple farmer will give you story
of low prices, or of failures on this or that
crop, how the longer he lives the less he
makes. Strike the stock-farmer with
farm and pasture adjoining. He will not
delight you with stories of untold wealth
in stock-farming, but will tell you of the
time when his stock saved him, and will
be able tell you of time when his farm
did magnifcently; between the two he
thrives. He is man who has a double
reliance; for his feed he has market of
his own property, his stock is never in
danger, and whether his property is large
or small he makes a profit. How much
or how little depends on circumstances to
some extent and largely upon manage
ment.-[ Texas Li0e-Stcck s7oHrnal.
Our highest aim in western Kan
sas has been to urge the general
adoption by our people of correct
principles in their business methods,
at the same time never failing to
work in the furtherance Of the in
terest of any public or private enter
prise whose tendency was for the
good of the country. The WORLD
is just as sure that stock-growing is
the proper basis Of effort on the
part of our rural friends as it is that